Let’s Talk about Substance Abuse and Domestic Violence

I have been a baseball fan for a really long time. I imagine most of you reading this have been fans for a long time as well. As a lover of data and athletics, baseball is the perfect amalgam of everything I love in sports.

Sadly, I feel my love for the game is slowly being ripped away from me. This is not because more batters are striking out than ever before. This is not because more home runs are being hit than ever before. It is Major League Baseball’s failure to help transition its top-tier athletes from normal lives to lives of monumental wealth and fame, as well as a failure to help them transition to life after baseball. In my opinion, a laissez-faire approach has been demonstrably proven to be woefully inadequate.

Let me be perfectly clear: Each and every player is personally accountable for his actions. MLB is not to blame, legally nor ethically, for the actions of its players. However, this does not mean more shouldn’t be done.

I don’t have the answers here, and I will not attempt to offer any. The following instances have all drained a little life out of my proverbial baseball soul. If enough of these occur, I fear it will deplete my love for the game beyond the point of no return.

Let’s Talk about Substance Abuse Disorders

On September 25, 2016, we lost one of the most exciting young pitchers in the game. José Fernández was electric, entertaining, and one of my favorite pitchers to watch. Tragically, he made the poor decision to pilot his yacht when he wasn’t sober. Toxicology later reported he had cocaine in his system and was legally drunk. He took two other lives with him.

Oscar Taveras was an exciting young prospect for the St. Louis Cardinals, with a tremendous blend of contact skills and enough power to be dangerous. While back in the Dominican Republic, he got behind of the wheel of his Red Camaro with five times the legal limit of alcohol in his system. That decision cost him his life and the life of his girlfriend.

Tommy Hanson was once one of the top young pitchers in the game. The winter following his release from the Giants’ minor-league system, he died from “delayed complications of cocaine and alcohol toxicity.”

Tyler Skaggs, of more recent tragedy, also died from substance abuse. He died of an overdose, with a mixture of fentanyl, oxycodone, and alcohol in his system. A recent ESPN article revealed that his opioid usage was known to the club for quite a while, and that a team official was providing him with narcotics.

Yordano Ventura’s toxicology report never was released. However, his estate still has not been paid out the full value of his contract.

Hall of Famer Roy Halladay flew an airplane with fatal levels of amphetamines in his system. According to the linked article, 500 ng/ml can cause death. Halladay’s level was 1,800 ng/ml. That he put himself at risk is an understatement. That he didn’t kill anyone else while flying is very fortunate. Perhaps because DUIs don’t get as much attention as other issues, his death may have actually helped his case for the Hall.

I’ve been in Toronto most of my adult life. Needless to say, I was a big Halladay fan. My memory of him now is as a danger to society who put himself and strangers in harm’s way by flying under the influence. I cannot separate the two anymore.

All of these stories came as a shock to their teammates and the baseball world in general. They contain a mixture of athletes in their prime, athletes struggling to compete, and athletes struggling with a post-baseball life.

Addiction is a mental health issue, not a legal issue. I do not know if any of the above-mentioned players struggled with substance abuse disorders, or if these were isolated incidents. The core issue is the stigma associated with drug and alcohol use that prevents players from talking about it.

Are teams — and by extension, Major League Baseball — making significant efforts to educate their players? Are they providing a confidential outlet for players in cases when they feel the need to reach out? Are they providing mentors who speak the same language as the younger players and who can offer support and information?

I’m not an insider, nor a reporter with access to clubhouses, so I can’t answer those questions. I can, however, look at the data, and the data screams, “No!”

Baseball, please do more to help your players. I don’t want to lose another José Fernández. I don’t want the memory of another Hall of Famer to be tarnished forever.

There are multitudes of moral and ethical reasons to do more about preventing and treating substance abuse disorders. Those should be enough on their own. Baseball, though, is a business, and business reasons tend to dominate business decisions. Outside of federal laws requiring teams or the commissioner’s office to do something, I don’t expect teams to make business decisions based on moral principles.

Still, even by the logic of business, it doesn’t make sense to have a system in place that doesn’t do everything possible to protect the lives of your players. What is the cost to MLB of losing a talent like Fernández? How many fans did the Cubs and Astros lose by employing Russell and Osuna, respectively? Is MLB combatting this human cost by investing in the prevention of substance abuse disorders and domestic violence? It is negligent not to do everything possible to prevent these instances.

Again, it is the players themselves who are ultimately accountable for their actions. But it is clear that there is more that could — and should — be done.

Let’s Talk about Domestic Violence

I have two young daughters. One does not need to have any daughters to be appalled by the Felipe Vázquez story. But the thought that, in the future, a baseball player might leverage his position to prey on one of my children doesn’t exactly make me want to be a fan of baseball. While it appears unlikely Vázquez will ever pitch in the majors again, if he does, I doubt I’ll have the stomach to watch.

And while one might think Vázquez won’t play again, there are numerous existing cases that suggest baseball will tolerate the continued presence of players accused of heinous acts.

First is the case of Addison Russell.  Russell was first accused of abusing his then-wife, Melisa Reidy, in an Instagram post in June of 2017, prompting a preliminary investigation from MLB. That investigation was never closed. In September of 2018, Reidy expanded on the allegations of abuse in a post on her blog — allegations that Russell again denied. Russell was placed on paid administrative leave, and this time, the subsequent MLB investigation led to Russell’s suspension on October 3. After serving the 40-game suspension, Russell returned to his role as the Cubs’ shortstop.

Here’s an excerpt from a December 2018 interview with Reidy:

Reidy says Russell had their son in one arm, and grabbed the front of her shirt with the other, throwing her across the room and onto the ground. “I was this close to my head hitting the coffee table,” she continues, “I just sat up and looked and he closed the bedroom door and had Aiden in there.” She went into the other room, and retrieved Aiden when she heard Russell go out onto the balcony. She fell asleep and woke up to him in bed with the two of them. Afterward, she was the one who felt like she had to apologize.

In the interview, Reidy documents a litany of verbal, physical, and emotional abuse that went on for years. Russell described the lengthy allegations as “completely false” before eventually admitting to having caused “pain” and “hurt” to Reidy, apologizing for his non-specific “past actions.”

Then there is the case of Roberto Osuna.

Osuna was arrested in Toronto in the early hours of May 8, 2018. According to the Globe and Mail, a source said police saw “significant injuries” on the alleged victim, who provided a video statement to officers. The charges against Osuna were eventually, since the victim — as often happens in domestic violence cases — refused to testify. Osuna signed a peace bond stating that he would not contact the alleged victim for one year, but he denies the allegations and has never admitted guilt.

The MLB investigation into the allegations led to the league suspending him for 75 games. Critically, though, that suspension did not make him ineligible for the postseason, making him a target for acquisition via trade. And the Astros did just that on July 30, 2018, sending the struggling Ken Giles and two middling pitching prospects to the Blue Jays in exchange for Osuna. Osuna went on to pitch 22 2/3 innings with a 1.99 ERA for the Astros in 2018, with six additional innings in the postseason. Had the domestic violence suspension never occurred, it is highly unlikely that the Astros would have acquired Osuna while giving up such a light return.

The list of players investigated or accused of domestic violence is a long one. In 2019, the list includes Domingo Germán, Julio Urias and Odúbel Herrera. Last season’s includes the aforementioned Osuna and Russell, as well as José Torres, Miguel Sanó and Steven Wright. If we go back further, we include names like Aroldis Chapman, José Reyes, and Derek Norris.

None of these instances is good for baseball. And as we saw this week, the effects of player instances of domestic violence ripple through the culture of the sport well beyond the ends of their suspensions. The story of the 2019 Astros’ World Series will now be defined by the actions of assistant general manager Brandon Taubman and the team’s subsequent attempts to discredit reporting of his behavior. Days later, the Astros have still failed to address the situation adequately. For this to be the big story on the eve of the sport’s biggest event is both telling and profoundly damaging.

Final Thoughts

I don’t have the answers to these issues, nor do I pretend to. I’m just a baseball fan, fortunate enough to have a platform to voice these thoughts. I am not remotely qualified to offer any solutions.

But there is a problem in this sport, a problem that is slowly eating away at my love for baseball. It’s a problem that, incident by incident, is making me question whether at some point I’ll wake up and not be a fan of baseball anymore.

To MLB: Please listen. Please do your utmost to help players deal with substance abuse disorders. Please do your utmost to educate, coach, and mentor athletes how to conduct themselves off the field as much as you do on the field. Because it’s the right thing to do, or because you simply want to safeguard your business — either way, action must be taken. One more incident of domestic violence, one more player death, will be one too many. Protect the game. Protect your players.

If you are struggling with the effects of domestic violence or substance abuse, there is help available. Contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline, the Crisis Text Line, or the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.

References & Resources

• “Toxicology report shows Fernandez drunk, used cocaine.” ESPN, October 29, 2016.
• “Taveras legally drunk in fatal crash.” ESPN, November 12, 2014.
• Brown, Dave. “Autopsy: Tommy Hanson died from cocaine and alcohol toxicity.” CBS Sports, December 11, 2015.
• Torres, Maria, and Mike Giovanna. “Tyler Skaggs’ autopsy: Fentanyl, oxycodone and alcohol led to death by choking on vomit.” Los Angeles Times, August 30, 2019.
• Negroni, Christine. “Roy Halladay Was Flying With Fatal Level of Amphetamines Before Crash.” Forbes, January 28, 2018.
• Jaffe, Jay. “Roy Halladay and the Collision of Baseball Mortality and Human Mortality.”  FanGraphs, January 25, 2019.
• “Toxicology report for Yordano Ventura won’t be made public.” Associated Press, February 17, 2017.
• Schad, Tom. “Royals pitcher Yordano Ventura’s $20 million guaranteed contract still unpaid after death.” February 13, 2019.
• Sanchez, Ray, Evan Simko-Bednarski and Kristina Sgueglia. “Pirates’ closer Vazquez described sexual encounter with girl as ‘sex but not really,’ police say.” CNN, September 18, 2019.
• Wittenmeyer, Gordon.“Addison Russell’s ex-wife reveals details of domestic violence by Cubs shortstop.” Chicago Sun-Times, December 19, 2018.
• Wallace, Kelly. “Melisa Reidy is Speaking Out. It’s Time for Everyone to Listen.” Expanded Roster, December 19, 2018.
• Taylor, Brett. “Addison Russell Releases Statement of Denial.” Bleacher Nation, September 21, 2018.
• “Final Report of the AD HOC Federal-Provincial-Territorial Working Group Reviewing Spousal Abuse.” Department of Justice Canada, January 7, 2015.
• Quinn, T.J. “Los Angeles Angels employee details team’s knowledge of Tyler Skaggs’ drug use to federal DEA investigators.” ESPN, October 12, 2019.